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“So where you from?” She asks, getting the tonic out of the fridge.
“The West Coast.”
“Where abouts?” She starts cutting a lime.
I tell her about Salt Spring and Sophie’s house and how I left for the summer and never returned.
“You miss it?”
“Yes. A lot. I always meant to go back.”
“Why don’t you?”
I sigh. “I don’t know.” I follow her back out to the fire, where Scott’s listening to Mr. Johnson talk about his grandchildren. We sip our drinks and accept another refill and tell them about Morgen and my education and our jobs. We tell them about our longing to be fulfilled and our dissatisfaction at the way things are.
“Well, what is it you want?” Mr. Johnson asks.
“That’s just it,” Scott says. “We don’t need a lot. We don’t need a lot of money or a big, fancy house. We just want to be happy.”
“And you’re not?”
“We are with each other,” Scott says, “but not with our circumstances.”
“So what would make you happy?” Mr. Johnson pushes.
“We don’t know,” I say. “That’s why we’re here. We’re trying to figure things out.”
They glance at each other. “If you’re looking to figure things out,” Mrs. Johnson says, “you should go to Bear Butte. We just came from there. It’s really a special place.”
“Where's that?”
“You know the Black Hills? South Dakota? It’s next to that. By Sturgis. Only a day’s drive from here.”
“We’ve been to the Black Hills,” I tell them.
“It wasn’t our thing,” Scott adds. “Too touristy.”
Mr. Johnson shakes his head. “Bear Butte isn’t in the Black Hills, it’s just nearby. If you haven’t been there, you should go. It’ll help you.”
Mrs. Johnson nods, smiling. “Here’s the thing,” she says in a whisper, leaning in closer to the fire. “It’s a hike up that mountain. On your way up, have an open mind. On the way down, figure it all out.”
Bear Butte
Change of plans. We’re no longer looking for the place where we spent the night under the stars on our way out to Portland. Now we’re headed north of the Black Hills to a mountain that an elderly couple just told us to climb. It’s further than we planned to go on this trip, but it’s still doable.
We stick to the interstate to make good time. I turn on the radio and run through the dial, settling on a public radio station out of South Dakota somewhere that’s playing decent music. And no commercials. We turn up the good songs and roll the windows down, driving past the waves of billboards under the gigantic sky.
We reach Sturgis at sunset, with just enough light left to find a campsite and set up. There’s a spot at the base of the mountain next to a small lake. We drop the fee in the registration box, set up our tent, and spend the night with the lake on one side, a pasture of cows on the other, and Bear Butte standing over us in the background.
In the morning, we drive to the mountain’s entrance. The woman behind the desk at the park's headquarters tells us to stick to the summit trail, leave prayer offerings undisturbed, and beware of rattlesnakes. “They’re out right now,” she says.
We agree to the terms and head off up the trail, past trees that have hundreds of prayer cloths tied to their branches. It'd make a good picture, but Scott doesn’t photograph them out of respect.
I’m already thirsty, but I hold off. We only have one bottle of water.
We pause. I sit on a rock on the path’s edge, close my eyes, and try to clear my mind. I think of Mrs. Johnson’s advice to have an open mind on the way up.
We climb. I take everything in: the steep trail, the rock formations jutting out, the little cloths. I’m out of breath, but I push myself forward. There’s the sound of my heartbeat and my footsteps, soft and even.
Scott sits down on a rock ledge for a break, but I push myself on, just like I have for all these years in school and then teaching, never resting. My heart is racing, my throat is parched, but still I step forward.
And then I stop. I don’t consciously tell myself to, I just do. There’s a rock on the side of the trail, so I sit on it to catch my breath. I close my eyes and feel the wind on my face and the rock under me. Scott catches up, hands me the water bottle, and sits down next to me in silence. I’m glad he stopped. There’s no hurry, there’s no reason not to take our time and enjoy ourselves along the way.
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